


All Valley

by suecsit



Category: Cobra Kai
Genre: M/M, Slow Burn, lawrusso
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-10
Updated: 2018-06-10
Packaged: 2019-05-20 17:57:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,786
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14899263
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/suecsit/pseuds/suecsit
Summary: Johnny and Daniel attend a committee meeting together. Things get messy.





	All Valley

**Author's Note:**

> This is a sequel to "Bert I and II," "Aisha," "Topanga," "Sam," and "Key" (in that order). 
> 
> Special thank you to all of you who have commented and left your love on these installments. It means the world. My URL on Tumblr is counterbalanceandkairos, and I'll be happy to talk Cobra Kai with you for hours. Come hang out.
> 
> This 7th episode in the "Bert" series shares the same name with the 7th episode of Cobra Kai. This is on purpose. Kind of. Mostly because right now I'm planning 10 or 11 episodes total, kind of like the show's format. We'll see.

Johnny showed up at the community center for the first All Valley committee meeting of the school year, and Daniel was nowhere to be found. 

He was going to kill him.

There were only five members present at this particular gathering. He recognized a few of them from the time he came to plead his case for Cobra Kai. Johnny got the feeling that August was a hard time to get people together for this kind of thing. School was starting, after all. Or at least it was for those parents who HAD kids in school. He pushed that thought out of his head. 

“I’m so glad you came,” George said, offering his hand for Johnny to shake. George had been one of Daniel’s staunchest allies the night that Johnny had made his case. “You'll be a great asset to this group. Even Daniel thinks so, which is remarkable considering how he acted before.” George looked at the members near him, and they nodded in agreement. “In fact, I thought the two of you were enemies, not colleagues. Good to see things have changed.”

Johnny managed a weak smile. They had no idea.

The meeting was called to order. Forty-five minutes passed without incident. Johnny found himself having trouble staying awake for it, since he had no interest in voting on food vendors or the color of mats. In fact, Johnny was about to doze off on the spot when he heard Daniel at the door. 

“Sorry,” he said, slipping into a chair at the end of their table. He looked at Johnny and smiled. Johnny looked away. Daniel had gotten him into this mess, and now he was showing up the last 10 minutes? And for what? Who showed up for a meeting forty-five minutes late anyway? 

“We held off voting for the last matter of business until you arrived, like you asked,” Sue said, glancing at Daniel.

‘Thanks, Sue,” Daniel said. 

“Johnny, to get you up to speed, we’re voting on an eligibility issue for participants,” George said. He shuffled some papers.

“Ok….” Johnny didn’t get what was so important that Daniel had to be there for it. This was karate. It wasn’t world peace. 

“We’re trying to decide whether it’s legal for a student to enter the competition unaffiliated, or without the registration of a sensei.”

Shit, he thought. Of course they were. Johnny had long abandoned any hope that the universe didn’t enjoy playing practical jokes on him.

“The bylaws of this organization don’t have any stated policy about this. Still, it seems like a liability nightmare. Having someone under 18 enter by themselves invites scrutiny of our safety practices,” another man explained. 

“Does this kind of thing happen often?” Keith, the Topanga Karate coach, asked the rest of them. Like Johnny, this was his first meeting. 

“No, it doesn’t,” Daniel admitted, keeping his eyes focused down on his folded hands in front of him. “It was a special circumstance last year.”

Johnny snorted. He couldn’t help it.

“I thought it took real guts for that kid to walk in by himself, “ Keith offered. “So we’re saying if that happens again we won’t allow it?’

“Well,” Sue said, “it’s just that if that kid had gotten hurt—“

“He DID get hurt,” Daniel interjected. “We had to call a medic to help him.”

“Right, so it’s important we decide what to do,” George asserted. “We had no information on that boy other than his name and age. We didn’t have an emergency contact, we didn’t have a teacher for him…“

Keith shook his head. “Then how on earth did he register?”

Johnny felt his hands clench into firsts for the first time in weeks.

“That’s the thing,” Sue said. “We’re not entirely sure.”

Silence. The group looked around at one another. 

“What do you mean, you’re not sure?” Daniel asked.

“When I spoke to our assistant at the community center, that person had no memory of taking his information down that final week,” Sue explained. “It’s like he found a way to put his name on the roster without getting it officially approved.”

Johnny slid farther down in his seat. He was hoping the floor might open up and swallow him. But then he looked over at Daniel, who seemed honestly confused. 

It hit Johnny that Daniel knew little of what Robby was capable of, save his ability to land an effective double kick. Somehow that made all of this a little more bearable. He knew his son. They didn’t. 

Finally.

Daniel seemed to recover from the mystery without giving it too much thought. “Sue, you're right about the safety issue. I do think we should state in our bylaws that you have to have an affiliation to compete,” he said.

“Oh really,” Johnny muttered.

The others glanced his way.

“Sorry, um, but I mean what if the kid had a good reason? What if his coach abandoned him at the last minute?” Johnny challenged, meeting Daniel’s eyes without apology. 

What made Johnny angriest was that Daniel would probably take this personally, and it had nothing (well, almost nothing) to do with him. Johnny knew what it was like to have a sensei turn on you. He knew all too well. 

And in this particular instance, Daniel’s temper, he imagined, could have been as bad as Kreese’s when he found out Robby’s true identity. He could never say for certain since he stormed off that night, but if he were a betting man…. 

“No one abandoned him,” Daniel seethed, unwilling to disguise his frustration with Johnny any longer. “No one even knew he was entering.”

“And why was that?” Johnny couldn’t help it. The rush he felt when he poked the bear still came. He had to figure out how to stop getting off on making Daniel happy AND making him furious. That couldn’t be normal. 

“Gentlemen, please,” George chuckled. “I thought you two had made up.”

“But this isn’t about us, “ Johnny returned to earth and looked away from his nemesis. “It’s about kids who have bad relationships with their senseis. And it happens more often than you think.” Out of the corner of his eye he saw Daniel look at him with more patience and, frustratingly enough, a little pity.

Fuck you, Larusso, he thought. Not all of us were trained by Mr. Rogers. Johnny kept his eyes averted. He didn’t need pity. He never asked for it.

“It’s a good point, Johnny,” Sue said. “I still think it isn’t safe.” 

George waited a moment for others to chime in, but the room was quiet. “The best thing to do is to take a vote,” he said. “Those in favor of adding a bylaw about affiliations?”

Six hands were raised. Daniel’s was the last to go up, but it still went up. 

“Those opposed?”

Johnny’s hand was raised, albeit tentatively. He felt out of his element with this crew. They all had professional attire and fancy pens and manila folders. He had walked into the room with nothing.

“Any other new business?” George asked. “If not, we’ll adjourn until next month.”

Everyone rose to leave. Johnny didn’t move. 

He saw Daniel shake hands and pat shoulders and charm everyone. He was suddenly jealous. How the hell did he do that? 

Once the room emptied, Daniel stood by the door. “You coming?”

Johnny didn’t answer. He had his arms crossed and he remained in his chair. 

Daniel smiled at him, which made him even angrier. 

“Do you think this is funny?” Johnny said. 

“You’ve asked me that before.”

Johnny started to speak and then stopped. His arms were clenched tightly across his chest. He refused to let Daniel make him react. He refused to compete with Daniel over Robby. He refused. He refused. He refused. 

Daniel crossed the room and then quietly pulled a chair out from under the table next to Johnny. He sat down and his arm went out to touch Johnny’s bicep. Johnny flinched and moved his chair a few inches to the right. 

Daniel sighed. “I don’t know what to do,” he admitted. “Usually you just start yelling at me.”

Johnny remained quiet. 

Daniel always won, he thought, so why compete at all? Why say anything? It wouldn’t change things with Robby. 

Minutes passed. Daniel reached out to take Johnny’s wrist like he did that night after the tournament. He glanced at the watch face there. 

“It’s getting late,” he observed. “Unless this thing is still broken?” he asked, turning over the hand and fingering the watch band. 

Johnny didn’t answer but he shook his head no. 

“I was hoping to talk to you, to spend time with you before I had to go back home,” he admitted. “But you’re making that pretty difficult.”

No reply.

“I used to hate your dojo, you know,” Daniel admitted, stroking his palm. “You changed that for me. The other night you made it different.”

He had no idea where Daniel was going with this.

“I just realized you must hate this room. I was a dick to you that night. Maybe I can make it different for you?”

Johnny looked up suspiciously. “What?”

Daniel laughed softly. “There’s your voice. I said…maybe I can make it different?”

He slid underneath the table on his knees, out of sight. The next thing Johnny felt was a hand on his jeans, unbuttoning and unzipping.

“Wait, Larusso, are you out of your mind?“

Those hands didn’t stop. They pulled until the jeans were halfway off his waist and Johnny was bracing his hands against the table. “Are you fucking crazy?”

“Maybe,” he heard a voice answer from beneath him. 

And then Daniel touched him, sliding him out from boxers that had too many holes in them. He was suddenly embarrassed. He tensed up and resisted.

“Please,” he heard Daniel say. “Just let me—“ Suddenly he felt Daniel’s mouth on him and he jerked forward, feeling something so intimate and wet and warm that he lost his ability to do anything but sink into it, letting his muscles relax and his head fall backward. 

“Daniel,” he whispered. He’d never said that name, not really. It was always Larusso this or that. It was a boundary he imposed on himself. 

He moaned and gave in, letting his hips move of their own accord. Daniel kept up with him, swallowing more until Johnny felt like he was being devoured. 

“Where did you,” he gasped. “Where did you learn how….”

“Shhhh.” The wet suction left him only for a second and then it returned, and the pressure built. It grew until Johnny felt his own body slide so far down the chair that it folded and crashed against the wall. 

Daniel caught him around his hips as he slid to the floor. He was so focused that Johnny wondered if he even realized it had happened. It didn’t seem like it because he didn’t miss a beat of the rhythm that was driving Johnny insane. 

In a moment of that insanity Johnny pictured Daniel applying the same focus to his kata, and the image drove him further toward the edge. Johnny threw his arm over his face as if to block the image out, but it consumed him. 

Even in his euphoria he wasn’t grabbing Daniel’s head or hair. He would die before doing that. Instead Daniel grabbed his left hand and wove their fingers together, pressing their hands to the floor as Johnny shouted out, his body convulsing harder than it ever had with any girl he’d been with in his past. 

When it ended and Daniel swallowed every bit of him, the man moved snakelike up toward Johnny’s face, lying down next to him, watching the aftershock play out on Johnny’s limbs and on his astonished face.

Daniel seemed content just to listen to Johnny breathe in and out. Then, propping his head on his elbow, he moved one hand leisurely beneath Johnny’s t-shirt, as if mapping out the different contours of his body. 

It moved possessively, staking a claim. Johnny didn’t mind.

“This floor,” Johnny said weakly, words failing him. He tried to reach down and pull up his jeans but he didn’t have the energy. 

“Hmm?”

They were lying on the community center classroom floor. The carpet had to be at least three decades old. “You’ll get those fancy clothes dirty,” Johnny muttered finally, his hand reaching out to pull on Daniel’s tie and tug him even closer to his chest. 

Daniel sighed and his hand went up to Johnny’s face, tracing the lines again. “Don’t make fun of my clothes.”

“I’m not.”

“Liar.”

“Shut up, Larusso. I wasn’t making fun of you.”

“Ah, so it’s Larusso again.” 

Johnny was genuinely puzzled. “Huh?”

Daniel smiled down at him. “You called me by my first name a few minutes ago.” 

“I did not.”

“You did.”

Johnny scooted down from him and sat up suddenly, finding the momentum to pull his jeans up to his waist while doing so. “I think you’re imagining things.”

“Sure, Johnny. Whatever you say,” Daniel sat up and hit his head on the table. “Ow!”

Johnny laughed hard at that. He pulled himself into a standing position and held out his hand. “Come on, Danielle, quit being such a klutz.”

Daniel scowled but took his hand and pulled himself upright. “You headed home?” he asked, brushing the dust and dirt from his pants and shirt. 

“Where else would I be headed?" Johnny asked. He paused and then it came out. "Want to come with me?” 

Daniel reached out for his hand, and they walked out of the room into the hall. “I want to,” he murmured. “I really do.”

“Then do it.”

“I can’t, Johnny. My family—“

“Larusso, there’s something you need to know.” Johnny let go of his hand and turned to face him.

Daniel looked at him with concern.  
“After last week’s practice, I heard Bert talking to Aisha.”

“Ok.”

“They know about us.”

Daniel froze. It took him a moment to respond. “I knew about Bert but—“

“Yeah, well, Aisha’s not stupid. I guess rides to Reseda late at night gave something away,” Johnny said. 

Daniel backed up against the wall and hit his head on it. Purposely. 

“Look, you don’t have to worry…”

“Worry? Damnit, Johnny, how can I not worry?”

“Because at some point you have to stop sticking your head in the sand! Come clean! Tell your wife the truth!”

“Screw you, Johnny! You don’t know shit about how my family works. Or about why I don’t want to hurt them!” Daniel took off ahead of Johnny, aiming for the parking lot.

“What makes you so special then?” Johnny caught up to him and grabbed his arm, halting his exit. 

“Get your hands off me!” For the first time since they had started this thing, Daniel looked like a deer in the headlights again, like he did when the Cobras used to circle him and take turns punching. 

“I’m NOT hurting you. I’m asking a question!” Johnny shouted, not caring if anyone else in the building heard him. “You don’t think there’s pain in every family? That shit doesn’t happen all the time to all of us? My son hates me. I still get up in the morning and go to work. I still live my life!”

“Oh, so just because Robby hates you my family should hate me too? Will that make us even, Johnny? Is that what you want?” The fear in Daniel’s eyes was replaced with cold fury. 

Johnny felt that fury and it didn’t give him the usual rush. He dropped Daniel’s arm and stepped back. 

“Wait…Johnny, I don’t mean that—“

Johnny just shook his head sadly. “I’ll always be the bad guy, won’t I.” 

Daniel hesitated, and Johnny felt it. “I never said you were the bad guy….” he finally managed.

“You just did.” Johnny shoved the front door open and let it release, uncaring if Daniel followed. 

“Johnny, wait, don’t leave like that—“ Daniel caught the door with his hand and stood there, watching him retreat. 

“No, you know what? You’re the one who wants to keep your distance. You say I don’t call you by your name but it’s you who can’t let the past go.”

Daniel stepped away from the door and threw his hands up. “I don’t know what you want from me!” 

Johnny opened his car door, the door to a vehicle that came from Larusso Auto. He couldn’t even make a clean exit. Daniel was everywhere. His touch, his influence, his things, his son….

“Figure it out,” Johnny shouted, slamming the door shut. His engine squealed as he pulled out of the lot.


End file.
